


the itsy-bitsy spider

by unreadable0



Series: kurokura oneshots [2]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: AU, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, This is just crack, cuteness, it's a crackfic guys, like hardcore, mamapika, mild swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 10:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15817476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unreadable0/pseuds/unreadable0
Summary: Kurapika sighed. The situation was getting more and more complicated by the day.Kuroro was a child, okay, but he'd been expecting just a shrunken version of the pompous thief rather than an actual child. And that was a problem, because said child was extremely endearing and starting to grow on him.ORKurapika gets saddled with a five-year-old version of his worst enemy and tries his best not to get too attached. He fails miserably, of course.





	the itsy-bitsy spider

**Author's Note:**

> reworked a prompt fill from a couple months ago. yeah, it's a mess. be warned.

Kurapika was sure that he was being punished for something. 

Had it been any other form of divine retribution Kurapika would have had no qualms. A part of him was sure that he would have deserved it, even. But not this time. Not when his punishment came in the form of an innocent-looking, five-year-old version of his worst enemy. 

God, he could practically  _hear_ whatever forces above laughing at him now. 

Even the man’s vile fur coat had shrunk to fit his new, much smaller body. The boy looked up at him with confusion and complete, foolish trust. Kurapika sighed. 

It wasn't that he didn't  _like_ kids—quite the opposite, in fact. But  _this,_ this was not a child. It was a psychotic murderer-thief coincidentally repackaged into a much smaller ~~cuter~~ form. 

He hadn’t even been looking for the Phantom Troupe leader in the first place! Heck, he’d stopped doing that years ago, and Kurapika had just started learning how to live a semi-normal life when Lucilfer had crash landed (literally) onto his front steps, a slip of paper sticking out of his front pocket. 

 _‘Sorry, I fucked up. Please watch over this package for me until I come to collect it in a few days,’_ it read, and the only thing that identified the writer of the note was a hasty scribble of a clown at the bottom left corner. 

Kurapika decided that he hated clowns. Perverted, pink-haired clowns, to be specific. Oh, how he wished he could just pummel Hisoka into oblivion… that would save him so much trouble in the long run. 

Sighing for umpteenth time that morning, Kurapika turned his attention back to the smiling child sitting a couple feet away from him. He had time to plot Hisoka’s timely demise later; there were bigger—smaller?—problems he had to deal with at the moment.

“Older sister? Older sister can you play with me?”

A tick developed at Kurapika’s eyebrow. “I’ve told you before, Lucilfer, I’m not your older sister,” he told the boy sternly. “If anything, I’m your  _older brother,”_ he muttered quietly to himself. 

“Okay, older brother!” Kuroro exclaimed, a cheerful grin playing at his lips.

_Shit. I guess his nen-enhanced hearing carried over as well._

At least he seemed to have forgotten how to access his pesky  _hatsu._

Kurapika exhaled slowly. It was going to be a long couple of days. Kuroro seemed to sense his pessimistic thoughts, and shot him the brightest, most adorable toddler smile imaginable. 

Kurapika almost smiled back.  _Almost._

* * *

_Some time later..._

"Kuroro" —since when had he started calling him by his first name?— "you've got to take a wash, okay?"

The child in question stuck his tongue out, letting out an adamant 'NO!' before crossing his arms in front of his chest and pouting. It would have been extremely endearing to watch if it were literally  _any_ other situation. 

"Come on, it's just a bath," the blond coaxed soothingly, thanking the heavens for his newly-found patience. "Come on, honey."  _Honey?_ Kurapika inwardly cringed at his choice of endearment. Kuroro still remained unflinching, but Kurapika could tell his stubbornness was softening. 

"Hmm," Kurapika said aloud, pretending to think things over, "how about this: you take a bath, and I'll cook you your favorite dinner! How does that sound?"

The kid looked extremely tempted. It still surprised Kurapika how easy it was to read the other's emotions. Kuroro was a child,  _okay,_ but he'd been expecting just a shrunken version of the pompous thief rather than an actual child. And that was a problem, because said child was extremely endearing and starting to grow on him. 

"B-but what if there's a... a  _monster?_ _"_ Kuroro said the last part in a hushed whisper, as if afraid that said monsters hiding in the bubble bath were listening. 

Kurapika almost laughed.  _Almost._ "I promise there isn't a monster, okay?" Kuroro looked at him suspiciously for a moment. 

"You pinky promise?"

"I pinky promise," Kurapika said solemnly. The toddler looked satisfied with his answer, and Kurapika didn't even try to stop the small laugh that escaped him. He checked his watch. 

Well, he had to get Kuroro's bath going soon; he had some pudding to make. 

* * *

"Kurapika," Kuroro hissed, poking the blond. " _Kurapika._ " He poked harder. The Kurta groaned and sat up, peeling a paper off of his cheek as he did so.  

"What do you need, Kuroro?" he asked sleepily, before snapping awake.  _Shit._ He had fallen asleep doing work again. 

"I couldn't sleep," he replied, tugging at his pyjamas. Kurapika glanced at the clock.  _Eleven-thirty._

"Well, sir, it is  _way_ past your bedtime now," Kurapika teased, standing up and stretching. "So let's get some warm milk into you and then see if you can sleep better then." Taking the toddler's hand, Kurapika led him into the kitchen. 

Warm milk always did the trick—his mother had taught him that. Thinking about his parents usually made him feel angry and full of regret, but now only a dull melancholy arose in him. What would they think of him now? Babysitting ~~and becoming attached to~~ the murderer of his people? Kurapika sighed heavily, but kept his thoughts to himself as he hefted the drowsy kid onto his hip and carried him up the stairs. 

Once he had finished tucking Kuroro in, Kurapika resisted the urge to plant an affectionate kiss on the boy's head before he headed for the door. Really, kids brought out the worst of his mothering tendencies, and his absolute worst enemy was no exception. 

"Wait!" 

Kurapika took his hand from the doorknob. He had been sure that Kuroro was asleep. 

"Can you tell me a story?" Kuroro asked sheepishly, fiddling with his bed covers. Kurapika immediately softened.

"A story?" Kurapika echoed quietly, walking back towards the bed. 

"It might help me sleep?" The slightly impish look in the other's eyes did not go amiss. 

The blond exhaled. The kid was way too smart for his own good, manipulating him like that. 

"Well... I do know one story," Kurapika began hesitantly, sinking down on the bed. Kuroro perked up immediately, and he gave a small smile at that. "In a little village far, far away, there was a little boy named Pairo..."

Speaking about his home should have been painful, but the awestruck look in the child's eyes made something in Kurapika shift and melt. 

* * *

_Three weeks later…_

“Get back here and put on a clean shirt, for crying out loud!”

“No!” Kuroro protested, darting off with his favorite, now-stained shirt. 

Kurapika chased the dark-haired boy down the hall. “Kuroro, please stop running! You’re going to fall and hurt yourself!”

The child just giggled and ran even faster, much to Kurapika’s dismay. Sighing, the blond wearily sat down. He was way too old for this. He was only 21, but  _still._

It was strange. Twenty-one days had passed, and he found that it was getting harder and harder to see the five-year-old boy as his worst enemy with each moment that he spent with the boy. After all, how could such a sweet—if not a bit mischievous—child be the cold-blooded murderer that he had come to know? It was as if his mind had made them separate entities entirely. 

Speaking of which, Kuroro did not seem to be much of a toddler anymore. If anything, he seemed to have grown a couple years in the past few weeks. Perhaps it was a side-effect of whatever curse that had been set on him in the first place. With any luck, Kuroro would be back to his infuriating adult self in a the next month. Good thing that Kurapika had burned that blasted coat while he’d had the chance. Currently the kid was dressed more tastefully in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. 

“Kurapika, is something wrong?” Sparkling grey eyes peered up at him questioningly, and the blond found himself smiling fondly.  _Wait, fondly?_

“Just a bit tired of chasing you around the whole day,” Kurapika explained, pretending to swoon for added dramatic effect. “I think I’ll just sleep now and not cook you dinner. Ah! It’s all your fault, you cruel monster!” 

“No! I’m sorry Kurapika! I didn’t mean to!” the boy cried, latching onto him like some sort of affectionate leech. “Please, please cook dinner! I promise I’ll never do it again!” Kuroro sniffled against his shirt, and Kurapika ruffled his hair playfully. 

“I’m just joking with you. I could never be mad at you, Kuroro,” the blond assured him without thinking. How ironic his words were.

“Really?” Something flickered in the boy’s eyes, something sharper and more familiar. 

Kurapika froze. 

“Yay!” Kuroro shouted, hugging onto him tighter, and the previous tightness evaporated in an instant. Perhaps it had just been his imagination. 

Relaxing, Kurapika hoped that it had just been his imagination. With a pang, he realized that he was going to miss the little kid once the spell had worn off. Ever since Kuroro had started living with him, Kurapika had been forced to adopt a normal routine. He would wake up to a hyper kid shaking him awake at precisely 7 am, who would then drag him downstairs to cook breakfast for the both of them. Then he would complete his papers for the Zodiacs and entertain Kuroro while doing so. Instead of falling asleep on top of his work, Kurapika would tuck in the child before turning in for the night himself, as the two of them shared a room, anyway.

Heck, if Kuroro’s spell remained permanent, then he’d consider renting a two-bedroom apartment instead. He certainly had the money to, anyway…

He sighed, something that he'd caught himself doing much too frequently in the past few weeks. The situation was getting more and more complicated by the day. 

* * *

_Two more weeks later…_

Kurapika smiled softly as the dark-haired boy frowned in his sleep, and he closed the story book he had been reading. Flicking off the light, he tried to disperse the nervous thoughts that had gathered in the back of his mind as he crawled onto a nearby futon. He had learned early on that Kuroro didn’t like sleeping by himself in the dark, based off of the first handful of nights in which he had been woken up by a distressed toddler wailing about the monsters under his bed. 

It had become second nature, now, to read a quick excerpt to the child before tucking him in for the night. Kuroro had grown three-and-a-half years in the past five weeks, by Kurapika’s estimation, and he was about to make a good twenty-year jump over night, if Hisoka’s note was any indication. 

The clown had finally made contact with him in the form of a very irritating letter. Kurapika had promptly shredded the note as soon as he had read it, but the main thing that he got from it was that Hisoka was a creepy pervert that should not be let around kids. Oh, and the fact that Hisoka had worked out a deal with whomever had cursed Kuroro in the first place. Kuroro would be returned to his original state by morning. 

Thinking about it made Kurapika feel a bit uneasy. Best case scenario would be that Lucilfer wouldn’t remember anything and Kurapika could feel free to kick him out without remorse. But even that would be slightly upsetting, due to the fact that Kurapika would have to return to his boring ways of paperwork and Zodiac meetings. 

Right as Kurapika was starting to drift off to sleep, too worn out by his worrisome thoughts, he realized that he probably should have just slept in the living room. Or in a hotel, for that matter. Oh, well. Too late for that now.

* * *

For the first time in thirty-five days, Kurapika woke up to silence. As soon as he opened his eyes, with the sun trickling in from opened curtains, he knew that something was very, very wrong. 

One, because he had somehow ended up back on his own bed, something that had not happened in weeks. Two, there was no sound or movement to be heard whatsoever, but Kurapika could feel Lucilfer’s aura presence in his vicinity. 

_No…_

Turning slightly to the other side of the bed, Kurapika almost screamed in terror. There, face just inches away from his own, was none other than Kuroro Lucilfer, in all his adult glory. Which meant that he was also blatantly without clothes, assuming that the clothes that he  _had_ been wearing didn’t fit anymore. There was a pleased grin on Lucilfer’s lips, and Kurapika had a feeling that the other man had been watching him for quite some time.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” Kurapika whispered, and he had never backpedaled off of a bed so quickly in his whole life. 

“Hey,” Lucilfer greeted, voice perfectly smooth and not at all resembling the child-like one that Kurapika had grown so accustomed to. With one swift movement, the Spider Head pulled the blond back to his chest, and Kurapika tried his best not full-out panic. 

Trying his best to escape the other’s vice-like grip, Kurapika averted his eyes to protect his modesty. “Lucilfer, please unhand me. If we work together, you can leave as soon as possible without any further issues.”

The dark-haired man inhaled deeply, hugging the Kurta even closer, if that was possible. “I do believe that I liked it better when you called me by my first name.”

“I’ll do that when hell freezes over,” Kurapika hissed, dropping all polite pretenses. Struggling, he tried not to get too comfortable. “Now let me go, or I won’t be held accountable for the consequences.”

“But I thought that you could  _never_ be mad at me, Kurapika,” Lucilfer replied smugly, and Kurapika closed his eyes and counted to ten.  _Damn it! I knew those words would come back to bite me later!_

“So you remember everything?” Kurapika hazarded, still trying to pry the other man’s fingers off of his waist. 

All he got was a hum in response, and if Kurapika had been any less conscious of his situation, he might have called it cute. 

“You’re not going to let this go, aren’t you?”

Kurapika could practically feel Kuroro smile into his shoulder. “This whole situation or you? Well, no for both.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Aww, but you loved me yesterday.”

Scoffing, Kurapika paused in his attempts to free himself in favor of turning to look at the Phantom Troupe leader. “That was when you were still a more complacent and agreeable kid, dumbass.”

“That just means that I’ll have to make you love me at this age, too.”

“That’s gross. Almost pedophilic for me,” Kurapika retorted. 

“Not if we were interested in each other before this _situation_ ,” Lucilfer responded quickly. 

“You—I wasn't—what?” The blond was sure that his head was going to explode. 

“Ooh, this is going to be fun.”

* * *

 Later, once Kurapika had calmed down long enough, he found himself nursing a cup of coffee as he scrutinized the blessedly now-dressed man in front of him. Lucilfer just smiled back in that smug way of his, and he could almost  _feel_ his eyebrow twitching in annoyance. Still, he would not be the first to break the charged silence between them. 

"You're good with kids," Kuroro remarked calmly, taking a long sip from his mug. Kurapika blinked, caught off-guard. 

"I suppose I am," he replied, voice coming out sharper than he intended.  _Whatever. I spent the past five weeks taking care of his ass. He can deal with a little rudeness._

Kuroro just hummed thoughtfully. 

"Look, I would  _love_ to just forget about this whole incident and go our separate ways, okay?" Kurapika said, after a long moment of consideration. "I no longer feel the need to hunt your little group, so you don't have to worry about me pursuing you. Just leave me alone, and I will do the same." Kurapika decided not to address any of the nonsense that the other man had sprouted earlier in the morning, because he was still half-convinced that he had just imagined the entire exchange. 

The dark-haired man just continued to stare at him, to the point that Kurapika felt a little uncomfortable. 

"If you have something to say, I'd rather you'd not beat around the bush," he snapped. His patience was wearing thin, because  _Kuroro Lucilfer, the murderer of his people,_ was just sitting in his kitchen like he  _belonged_ there, and Kurapika wanted to strangle something. 

The Spider Head just looked at him with an indecipherable emotion in his eyes. "If I did, you'd probably kick me out of your house." Kurapika huffed. 

"Well, I was planning on doing that anyway, so  _out with it,_ " he said impatiently. The sooner Lucilfer got out of his flat, the sooner that Kurapika could go back to his normal, dull paperwork. 

"I like you. I like you and I would like to take you on a date. And possibly have kids. I like kids," Lucilfer explained bluntly, sounding entirely too sure of himself. Kurapika gaped, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.  _What did he just say?_

 _Whoops. Maybe the kids thing was too much?_ Kuroro thought to himself, watching as the blond's face rotated through multiple shades of red.  _Cute._

**Author's Note:**

> haha this is terrible. please let me know whether or not i should delete this.
> 
> ps: thank you for 150+ on tumblr!! lots of love you guys!


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